Washington whacks at idealism

June 19, 2003

Like actors in the movie "Groundhog Day," some congressmen are proposing once again to gut funding for the Corporation for National and Community Service, which funds the national volunteer service program called AmeriCorps.

AmeriCorps is the domestic version of the Peace Corps, and it places volunteers in not-for-profit programs across the nation to serve those in need. In Illinois, planned cuts would trim program members to 223 from 645. In Chicago, CityYear positions would drop to 45 from 85.

Around the country, AmeriCorps members do service projects ranging from tutoring and mentoring youth, running after-school programs, assisting crime victims, building affordable housing, painting senior housing, feeding the homeless, cleaning parks and streams and helping communities respond to disasters.

They do it for a pittance--far less than what it would cost if these were regular government or private-sector jobs. Members make a commitment for 10 months and receive a small stipend for their average 44-hour workweek that amounts to roughly $4.55 an hour. They also receive a $4,725 education grant to help pay for college, graduate school or to pay back student loans.

Pure volunteer groups often do wonderful work, but they can be more haphazard than reliable. Finding people to make long-term commitments to organizations outside their churches or their children's schools is a Sisyphean task.

President Bush long has supported the idea of national service, and even touted expanding AmeriCorps from its current Congress-imposed cap of 50,000 volunteers to 75,000. His rhetoric has fallen far short of action, however, as he is now cooperating with Congress' aim to slash the program by $65 million to $175 million.

In recent years, the Corporation for National Service has come under fire for bad accounting and management practices. The result has been forced internal cutbacks in order to fully fund education awards for all past and current AmeriCorps members.

But the argument that AmeriCorps is some ineffective, expensive expansion of federal government doesn't hold up. A 1995 cost-benefit analysis by the General Accounting Office found that for every dollar spent on AmeriCorps, society reaps from $1.68 to $2.58 in quantifiable benefits. More difficult to quantify is the lifelong sense of idealism and public service that it can foster.

On Mondays and Fridays at 8 a.m., corps members in their CityYear uniforms are seen doing calisthenics in unison outside the U.S. Post Office in the Loop. It's a powerful sight, and a reminder to passersby in business suits that there are plenty of idealistic youth from diverse backgrounds interested in coming together to make their communities a better place.

AmeriCorps is a program that has made an indelible mark on many of the 250,000 alumni who have served over its nine-year existence.

What a shame, particularly in this post-9/11 world, to let all that opportunity, idealism and impact go to waste.